Xbox 360 Hacks - News, Hacks, Cracks, Mods.

Just as a Heads Up:
According to the Xbox 360 DVD Drive Database, it appears Xbox 360s outfitted with the highly anticipated Jasper revision boards, with the 65nm chipset (65nm GPU and CPU) may have finally started showing up in stores and at online retailers.

The things to look for when buying a new Xbox 360 with the Jasper chipset is a manufacturing date (MFR) as early as 2008-08-06, Lot 8031 and up, and Team CSON.

Next revision is Valhalla, with a unified single chip CPU/GPU design.

As designers of the world’s first and best selling 360 DVD Connect Kits, we are pleased to announce the latest in our line of Xbox 360 Connectivity Kits.

We are offering the option of a much cheaper alternative for those that are on a budget.

* 360 Connectivity Kit V3 Lite. RRP $29.95

Feature List:
- RS232 Support (Liteon Key dumping)
- Powers ALL XBOX 360 DVD Drives
- Mode-B on Hitachi 59 & Earlier (78/79 Require Slax Disc)
- Compatible with already released tools (dvdkey/dvdkey32/toolbox etc)
- Onboard ON/OFF Switch
- Onboard Eject Switch
- FREE SATA Cable
- High Build Quality
- Trusted Xecuter Design

* 360 Connectivity Kit V3 Pro. RRP $49.95

Feature List:
- USB Support (Liteon Key dumping)
- Powers ALL XBOX 360 DVD Drives
- Mode-B on Hitachi 59 & Earlier (78/79 Require Slax Disc)
- Compatible with already released tools (dvdkey/dvdkey32/toolbox etc)
- Onboard ON/OFF Switch
- Onboard Eject Switch
- FREE 360 Hard Drive Adapter
- FREE SATA Cable
- FREE USB Cable
- High Build Quality
- Trusted Xecuter Design

Xbox LIVE is having a scheduled downtime on Monday, September 29 starting at 12:01am Pacific Time. It will be down for 24 hours as they prepare for the cool new stuff coming your way in the new Xbox experience.

*To clarify, Xbox LIVE will be down as will those sections on Xbox.com that rely on the service such as “My Xbox”. Also, the forums will be viewable but you won’t be able to post in them.

The Wii is still impossible to get. The Xbox is roaring back. And Playstation really struggles.

VIDEO

This is going to be the next landmark year for Video Game consoles.

From Team Xecutor:

We have expanded our hugely successful connectivity kit v2 to include complete support for Liteon Drive Key Dumping.

Feature List:
- RS232 Support (Liteon Key Dump)
- Power to all XBOX 360 Drives (Hitachi / Samsung / Benq / Liteon)
- Mode-B Switch for Hitachi 59 and Earlier (78/79 Requires Slax)
- Onboard ON/OFF Power Switch
- Onboard Eject Switch
- High Quality Xecuter Design

Pre-Order Now. Release Date September 27th

http://www.team-xecuter.com

Filipiak gives true meaning to the Xbox 360 Arcade with his custom created game pad… Check it.

Click on the screen shots to enlarge.

Filipiak quotes –

The joystick is completely wireless and built from an original game pad. I even cut up the plastic battery pack so you don’t have to open the box to change the battery when it’s flat. As you can see in the picture, you can change the pack like you would on a normal controller. The box itself is all hand made from MDF and the buttons and joystick are all original arcade components.

The joystick is connected to the d-pad and we have every button except for the two triggers as they are digital and a micro switch would either turn them off or on, not good for games unless you want auto fire I guess. Also the two analogue sticks haven’t been used either.

All the side art was made by me on my vinyl cutter, I tried to keep it all looking like an official Xbox controller, hence the green and white theme.

The new ALL-IN-ONE Tool, It supports POWER KIT + SERIAL RS232 + USB Tool, throw away anything else you have been using, this is all you need to update/reflash your drive safely. After endless hours of design and testing we are proud to offer this high quality product.

Feature List:
- RS232 Support (Liteon Key dumping)
- USB Support inside Windows (Liteon Key dumping)
- Power Feed all XBOX 360 Drives
- Automatic Mode-B on Hitachi 59 and earlier (78/79 require slax)
- Compatible with already released tools (dvdkey/dvdkey32)
- Native Toolbox support soon
- Onboard ON/OFF switch
- Onboard Eject tactile switch
- High Quality and Heavy Duty Parts
- Safe and Tested Design
- Other small features to be released will be announced later

THEY START SHIPPING ON 29 Sept 08 PREORDER NOW !!

Official Site: maximusgames.net

Not quite a finished product; but damn, it’s pretty bad ass… What you see below is a modded 360 controller equipped with a line-in jack introducing music to your online play. This will allow you and your friends to rock the same tunes remotely while in game.

The finished product will feature volume control and a mute button for chat, as well other tweaks I’m sure.

- source: acidmods

Xbox Product Manager Germany Boris Schneider-Johne states in a utmost interesting interview with Golem.de that this [quicker load times when playing games from HDD] won’t be the case for the majority of 360 games.

“We now allow the customer to install games on their hard drive. This is optional, you don’t have to do it. But if I do it, these games will load faster because a DVD-drive with seek operation does have load times every now and then. There are prominent examples, for instance: Project Gotham Racing 3, one of the first games for the Xbox 360. There the load times have been very long; those are going to get reduced immensely. Recent games are already optimized; there the gain is relatively small.”

Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense…  Any game I had installed to the ORIGNAL XBOX, has loaded much faster than from the DVD drive.   Todays SATA DVD drives are faster, but then so are the SATA Hard Drives. I guess you will have to determine, on your own, if it is faster or not.

Here’s a video of the Google Tech Talks titled “The Xbox 360 Security System and its Weaknesses” by Michael Steil (mist) and Felix Domke (tmbinc): “After the disaster of the original Xbox, Microsoft put a lot of effort in designing what is probably the most sophisticated consumer hardware security system… ”

YouTube Video

News-Source: xbox-linux.org